User:BeenAroundAWhile/Sandbox Angie Waller

Angie Waller is a visual artist who has lived in Los Angeles, California, and New York City. She works with found objects and does books, videos, installations and websites. According to Brendan Carroll of Art21 Magazine, Waller "uses data mining techniques to identify patterns and create stories that evaluate the mundane stirrings of contemporary life."

Books
Data Mining the Amazon (2003) is a small, limited-edition book that summed up Waller's study of a section of Amazon.com's website that reported on the other purchases that its customers had made, titled "Customers who bought . . . also bought . . . ." She said that she began the project as a "loyal customer" of Amazon who was a "sucker for e-shopping" and that, with research, she discovered "associations between pop culture and books that described a specific political ideology." She said the Bush-Gore election of 2000 provided a "perfect opportunity to start pin-pointing the differences between Democrats and Republicans based on the types of music they listened to."

I'm Sorry. 2010. This book contains "excerpts of public apologies in hand set type."

Video
Waller has said that she began making videos from found footage rather than shooting them herself.

Steve Kurtz Waiting. 2006. Explores the arrest, detention and pre-trial period of university professor Steven J. Kurtz, who was arrested in 2004 on suspicion of bioterrorism and was convicted of mail and wire fraud, the indictment being later overturned by a judge.

Armored Cars: Protect Yourself From Ballistic Attacks. A video and photographic collage compiled from marketing materials produced by manufacturers of armored cars, the installation was seen by The New York Times as a playing "to post-9/11 insecurities and the fears of the wealthy in politically unstable regions." Charissa N. Terranova, a professor of aesthetic studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, compared Waller's "own process of video fabrication" to "the fabrication of corporate truth as a ploy in the marketing of armored cars."

Installations
Orginality Compass and copyright law. The 2010 work "consists of quotes from U.S. copyright cases" arranged in different ways, as one reviewer put it, "Possibly to bewilder the viewer at the complexity and subtle distinctions which exist in this area of the law." The work has been displayed at locations in New York and in Mexico. Waller's plan was published in The Believer magazine for February 2011. A Chicago Tribune reviewer said of the display:

"The lengthiest read must be Angie Waller's research on originality and copyright. A tome of highlighted official documents sits on a table for anyone willing to brave the legalese, but thankfully Waller also provides Cliffs Notes of a sort in the form of a handy compass summarizing the verdicts in cases involving Jeff Koons, Tiffany & Co., Cash Money Records and others."

Most Searched Fears. This work is a word cloud printed by letterpress in glow in the dark type: Visitors must stand behind a dark curtain or in a dark room to see it.

Library of the Unknown and Unknowns. 2011. Waller rebound 45 books "in identical covers, with regulation foiled titles, all of which contained the word 'unknown.'" This work was capped by a quarterly online newsletter that is captioned "We provide timely information you didn't know you didn't know."

Electronic works
myfrienemies.com. In this website participants register "to post tales of their frienemies and to connect with people who share similar dislikes."

The Most Boring Places in the World, 2009. The interactive presentation "features every mention of 'the most boring place in the world' on chatrooms and in blogs and live journals [that] the artist could find from January 10 to May 1, 2009, organized into a Google maps Tour." The quotations are paired with satellite images of cities and towns around the world.